His hands stilled as his inner conflict showed in both his expression.

Ian was constantly trying to take care of everyone. His family, with the trusts he’d set up for them. His pilots, both by asking after Linda’s health and then by making sure they would be comfortable during their unexpected stay in town. Everyone involved with the Seattle Family Foundation.

And now her.

He thought he needed to pull away to “protect” her, and the truth was that she still didn’t know how to convince him otherwise. All she knew was that being here with him now, in their own private world, wonderfully captive in a storm, felt like the best thing that had ever happened to her. Especially when she thought about the way he’d opened up to her on the plane when they were running through her script together.

He’d told her about the safety nets he’d put into place so that his family would never feel vulnerable or scared again, and she’d known with absolute certainty that Ian would do anything in his power to keep from feeling that way himself. That he’d push away anything—or anyone—that made him feel vulnerable.

Wishing that she could find a way to convince him that he was safe with her, she said, “For as long as we’re here, for as long as the real world is beyond the storm, let’s pretend this is all there is. Just you and me.”

She was watching his face so carefully that she could see just how much her suggestion tempted him. Still, he tried to caution them both, a protector to his core. “The storm won’t last forever.”

“I know. But it’s here now. And so are we.”

She wanted desperately to kiss him. But she’d been the one who had made the first move on the night of her Oscar nomination, and had been the one to kiss him again on Friday night at the fundraiser.

This time, he had to be the one to decide.

His gaze was so dark, his expression so conflicted…before he uttered one low, heartfelt curse, then lowered his mouth to hers.

Ian’s mouth was so warm, felt so good, tasted so delicious, that Tatiana could have kissed him like that forever if he hadn’t needed to lift her sweater over her shoulders. She was yanking his shirt from his pants when he abruptly pulled back.

“Damn it, we can’t do this.”

“The real world doesn’t count here, remember?” She couldn’t keep the need, or the frustration, from her voice.

“I don’t have any condoms. There’s been no one but you since the wedding months ago, but—”

“I’m on the Pill.” She had already finished stripping away his shirt as she told him, “I’ve been on it for years to deal with bad cramps.”

He quickly ripped off the rest of her clothes and lifted her up so that her back was pressed flat against the tiles. His hands were everywhere at once—her br**sts, her hips, then back up to thread through her hair so that he could take her mouth at exactly the right angle to drive them both to the brink of insanity.

“Every single second since Friday,” he said as he found her wet and hot and ready for him, the words resounding raw and deep in the small tiled shower, “I’ve wanted you again. You’re all I’ve been able to think about, Tatiana.”

“It’s been the same for me.”

And, oh God, when he entered her skin-to-skin, even bigger, even harder than she remembered, it felt so good that she moaned and arched her back and neck, heedless of the hard tile behind her head until she knocked into it.

He cradled her head in his hands. “Sweetheart? Are you okay?”

“I’m perfect. Just please,” she begged, barely noticing the slight throb in the back of her skull, “please don’t stop. You feel so good inside me like this, with nothing between us.”

The next thing she knew he was turning off the water and carrying her from the shower to the bed. She clung tightly to him, loving the way he moved inside of her as he took them across the room.

They dropped onto the covers in a wet tangle of limbs and their lovemaking was a perfect blur of desire and desperation as he stroked, aroused, possessed every last inch of her. She loved it, loved when he lost control, loved knowing she could do this to him when he was so utterly controlled in every other moment, even when it had looked like their plane might go down.

She knew she’d been all he’d thought of then, just as she knew she was all he thought of now. He was utterly focused on her pleasure, and her happiness, as he sent her tumbling heart-first into a climax that already felt so good she wasn’t sure she’d survive it.

And when he stared into her eyes as he finally let himself go, too, she knew with perfect certainty that he’d truly never meant to hurt her. Because everything he’d ever done, even pushing her away, had been because he cared.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

“Can I ask you something?”

Ian’s lungs still burned with the need for oxygen. The need to take Tatiana, to possess her and make her his, had become such an obsession that desire obliterated common sense every time he touched her. Hell, so much as looking at her or catching her scent in a room made him go a little crazier.

Now, in the aftermath of crazy, they were tangled in each other on the small bed, with the quilt bunched beneath their damp, naked bodies. He growled, “If you’re going to ask me why...”

She laughed, her br**sts bouncing against him as she said, “I’m pretty sure I already know why this time. Although—” She gave a little nip at his shoulder. “—I may ask you later, anyway, just to see you get all riled up. But only because I never quite know what you’re going to do or how you’re going to take me when you’re like that.” She made a little hum of pleasure. “A little rough. A little angry. A little fast. A little hard.”